Microglia Chemotaxis Assay Service

Chemotaxis is the directional movement of microglia in response to chemical signals. This ability is essential for microglia to patrol the central nervous system (CNS) and respond to injury. Through in vitro chemotaxis assays, researchers can quantitatively analyze the migratory response of microglia to specific chemokines, thereby understanding their behavioral changes under pathological conditions. At Creative Biolabs, we are dedicated to offering efficient and reliable microglia chemotaxis assay services to customers across the globe. To learn more about our products and services, submit a project request, or request a quote, please contact us at your earliest convenience.

Applications

• Disease Model Research: By detecting the chemotaxis of microglia in vitro, researchers can simulate and study the behavior of microglia in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease (AD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). For example, toxic substances in neurodegenerative diseases such as beta-amyloid protein can stimulate microglia to release chemokines, thereby promoting their migration and inflammatory response.
• Drug Screening and Validation: In vitro chemotaxis assays can be used to evaluate the effects of potential drugs on microglial migration. Some drugs may reduce microglial migration by inhibiting specific chemokine receptors, thereby reducing neuroinflammation or injury.
• Mechanism Research: In vitro chemotaxis assays provide researchers with a deeper understanding of how microglia respond to different chemical signals, as well as insight into the underlying molecular mechanisms.

Microglia Chemotaxis Assays Methodology

• Transwell Assay

The Transwell assay is based on the Boyden chamber, which employs a membrane bottom plate with pores in contact with a chemokine solution. This allows microglia to migrate to the underside of the membrane bottom plate.

Fig.1 Transwell assay workflow¹.

Traditional fixed endpoint transwell assays allow cells to migrate for a period of time and then be fixed and stained for visualization. However, this approach does not provide kinetic information and has limited throughput. To gather more nuanced data, and to screen many different potential chemokines at once, further validation can be performed using the Dunn chemotaxis assay, lower agar assay, or microfluidic device.

• Scratch Assay

Wound-healing migration assays allow the study of cell migration dynamics at the single-cell level by tracking individual cells during live cell imaging or by introducing a cell-free gap and observing changes in the area covered by cells. This approach allows qualitative and quantitative analysis of cell migration towards specific molecules.

• Microglial Cytokine and Chemokine Assays

Chemokines are a class of signaling molecules that can direct cell migration and positioning. They regulate microglial behavior by binding to specific receptors. In neurodegenerative diseases such as AD, chemokines such as CCL2, CCL3, CCL4, CXCL1, CXCL8, CXCL9, CXCL10, etc. are upregulated. These factors are mainly involved in pro-inflammatory responses, whereas anti-inflammatory chemokines such as CCL17 can reduce inflammatory responses.

We offer a range of options for quantifying cytokines and chemokines in microglia, including traditional methods such as western blot, ELISA, and qPCR, as well as cutting-edge technologies such as live cell imaging, NGS, and omics approaches.

Fig.2 Relative changes of relevant pro-inflammatory cytokines after treatments with LPS, Rapamycin and LPS + Rapamycin. lmage quantifications were carried out using a customized software pipeline and graphs were generated with GraphPad Prism.

At Creative Biolabs, our microglia chemotaxis assay service enables you to further study the key role of microglia in genomic instability and neuroinflammation, and improve the efficiency of new drug development. We invite you to contact us to discuss your project plans in detail.

Reference

1. Maguire, Emily, et al. "Assaying microglia functions in vitro." Cells 11.21 (2022): 3414. Distributed under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.